The European INNOSUP project DIGI-B-CUBE aims to foster the development of cutting-edge solutions and prototypes for the healthcare sector. This 36-month has been launched in the end of May 2019 and secpho is part of the multi-disciplinary consortium, coordinated by the Oslo Cancer Cluster, composed of 9 partners spanning Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Norway, Portugal and Spain. The consortium consists of a cluster network (DNT), five clusters (OCC, Ci3, INFOPOLE, secpho and BIZ-UP), and three SME partners (NMD, MOT and SPI), all connected to Health, Digitalisation, Innovation and Information Technologies sectors. The first six partners will be actively involved in the implementation of DIGI-B-CUBE activities and the open call. The three SME partners will be involved in the development of DIGI-B-CUBE’s online portal, semantic matchmaking platform and smart contract concept implementation. The 9 European partners submitted a proposal titled “Digital Enterprise Innovations for Bioimaging, Biosensing and Biobanking Industries (DIGI-B-CUBE)” to Horizon 2020 – an EU research and innovation funding programme. The proposal was approved and the EU commission granted approximately 5 million euro to the DIGI-B-CUBE consortium.
The 9 consortium partners of DIGI-B-CUBE attended the Kick-off meeting on 27 and 28 of May in Oslo and discussed the main action points for accelerating the creation of digital solutions for the Health sector in Europe. The participation of clusters is a key part of this project which aims to bring together companies from different sectors and promote the creation of combined solutions. The welcome note was delivered by Ketil Widerberg, General Manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster, who spoke about digitalisation solutions which will reconfigure how health treatment is provided and lead to more effective diagnosis and enable personalised medicine. The two-day meeting was the starting point of a project that aims at increasing agility, efficiency and accuracy of diagnosis and treatments offered to patients.
DIGI-B-CUBE will facilitate the identification of artificial intelligence and cognitive computing digital technologies which can be applied by the bioimaging, biosensing and biobanking industries. The project will provide innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the EU and associated countries with access to vouchers of up to €60,000, to develop prototypes and customised solutions for the health sector. The voucher scheme open call and online matchmaking portal will be launched in April 2020, but SMEs can start engaging in the project activities in the coming months by joining the project´s sectoral and cross-sectoral workshops, as well as, matchmaking sessions. Through DIGI-B-CUBE website, companies will also be able to interact with the consortium, identify potential partner SMEs, access digital services and contribute for the elaboration of an action plan that suits their needs.
What is “B-CUBE”?
“B-CUBE” is an abbreviation for bioimaging, biosensing and biobanking.
- Bioimaging, or biological imaging, refers to when creating images of the human body or parts of it to diagnose or examine disease.
- Biosensing is the measurement of a chemical substance, for example glucose monitoring in diabetes patients or other medical health related targets.
- Biobanking is the storing of human biological samples so that they can be used for medical research later.
The large and complex datasets derived from these fields will require automated medical diagnostic processes. Digitalization solutions will reconfigure how health treatment is provided and will lead to more effective diagnosis and will enable personalized medicine.